US Catholics debate defrocking abusive priests

Much of the recent scrutiny of the Roman Catholic Church's response to clergy sexual abuse has focused on whether the Vatican - and the man who is now pope - acted quickly enough to kick perpetrators out of the priesthood.

But church officials, experts in abuse prevention and even some victims' advocates question whether the time-consuming church process known as laicization, often called defrocking, is the right benchmark in abuse cases.

The question - to defrock or not? - is complicated by the fact that most abuse allegations date back decades and cannot be prosecuted criminally, leaving decisions about how to deal with abusers largely in the hands of church authorities.

Some Catholics say laicizing a perpetrator, which only the Vatican can do, is just and fair - an unambiguous verdict that validates victims and punishes child molesters with the clerical equivalent of the death penalty.

But laicizing a priest can take years, while a local bishop can swiftly yank perpetrators from working with children and continue to keep tabs on them. Because of that, others say the focus should be on holding church officials accountable for taking action short of that: permanently removing perpetrators from ministry and keeping them away from children.

One knock on laicization is that the church and former priest cut ties, meaning an abuser would be free of all church supervision.

"People get so mad at perpetrators - which is understandable - and the bishops," said Monsignor Stephen Rossetti, a psychologist and former head of St. Luke Institute in Silver Spring, Md., which treats molester priests. "But they forget what the goal is. The goal is to protect minors."

Laicization is in the spotlight now because of recently publicized documents calling into question how a powerful Vatican office headed by the future Pope Benedict XVI handled abuse cases.

In two U.S. cases, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, headed by then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger from 1981 to his papal election in 2005, either slowed down or resisted steps toward the laicization of two abuser priests.

One involved a Wisconsin priest, never laicized, accused of molesting as many as 200 deaf boys. The other concerned an Oakland, Calif., priest who sought to leave the priesthood after being convicted of child molestation - a request that eventually was granted. The Vatican has defended its response, citing the circumstances involved.

In the United States, the so-called zero tolerance policy adopted by bishops in 2002 bars priests with any credible abuse allegation from public ministry - meaning no clerical garb, celebrating Mass publicly or access to children.

Most abuser priests in the U.S. do not face the additional step of laicization, a dismissal from the clerical state that also typically lifts the celibacy obligation, said Rossetti, a professor at the Catholic University of America in Washington. He puts the figure at 20 percent.

However, it's impossible to get a full picture because the Vatican does not release data on the number of priests laicized for child sexual abuse.